An Abundance Of Katherines

It never fails: when reading a book I am always the most likely to be interrupted when I am about to finish. The battle is raging at full swing, the character is about to make some deep philosophical discovery about themselves, or the mystery is about to be solved when, suddenly, someone comes stomping in and completely snaps my concentration. And then of course I can't recapture the moment, because by the time it takes me to get back in to mood of things you've already missed the crucial moment. I'm sure you can relate. It happened during The Fault In Our Stars. It happened during The Book Thief. And literally thirty minutes ago, it happened during An Abundance Of Katherines. (Twice in fact. In the last two(!) pages.) I mean sure, on most of these occasions there was good reason to interrupt me; I've been reading for an hour and a half on the toilet perhaps, or maybe it's just getting late. But still, you'll excuse my rant. To clarify, all you really need to take from that is I may not have fully comprehended all of the deep revelations that the main character, Colin, was making, and so my view of the book may be slightly diminished. Not to say that it wasn't a good book; quite the opposite in fact. But lets back it up here.
This story follows the aforementioned Colin; a child prodigy who longs to become a genius and, perhaps more importantly, not be forgotten when he dies- something I can personally relate to (the being remembered part only, I'm afraid...). For reasons mostly unknown (coincidence, he says, though this seems odd), Colin has only ever dated girls with the name Katherine. It is after a breakup with Katherine the 19'th that he, in an attempt to recover, takes a road trip across the United States with his happy-go-lucky friend Hassan. They soon find themselves in Gutshot, Tennessee, where Colin has his "eureka moment;" the idea of creating a mathematical formula that will predict the outcome of any relationship. This he hopes, will turn him from a prodigy into a genius. From someone who does what others have done and knows what others have known to someone who is the first to discover, the first to do. This proves to be just a little trickier then previously thought, however...
All in all, I was very satisfied with this book. It was short and entertaining enough so as not to drag on, but long enough so that I walked out satisfied with almost all loose ends seemingly tied down. I had heard that all of John Greens characters were similar from book to book, however I did not find this when comparing to The Fault In Our Stars. This book was funny, interesting, and overall simply well written. 8/10 stars.

-Mark Jones (well, he is the only person writing on this blog at the moment... :)

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